ON THE

CHARACTER OF THE ELOQUENCE

OF

JUNIUS,

VIEWED

In Comparison with that of other ORATORICAL WRITERS, Ancient and Modern.

NOTWITHS

OTWITHSTANDING the popularity of

these LETTERS of JUNIUS; there are not wanting detractors, who alledge, that their fame has been owing more to lucky accidents than to intrinsic merit; that they are still read, rather because they breathe the spirit of sedition, than as being pregnant with eloquence; that they are preserved, chiefly, by the salt of malignity; that their composition is not in a style of true taste or correctness; and that they display, in the whole, nothing either of. that consummate art, or of that divine inspiration of native genius, which are ne cessary to constitute true oratorical excellence.

HAD the writer of these pages thought thus; he would never have undertaken to become the Commentator of JUNIUS.

BUT, as such an opinion has been propagated; an enquiry into the essential nature of true eloquence, and a comparison of the merits of the best remains of ancient oratory, and the most admired specimens of that of the moderns, with the style, substance, and design of the LETTERS of JUNIUS, seems indispensably requisite, to explain the true causes on VOL. I.

*

which

which the undiminished popularity of these Letters depends. Besides, if it be true, as is commonly affirmed, that English Literature possesses no good didactic treatise upon Eloquence; and if the explication of principles may be associated, the most happily, with the examples in which the truth and importance of those principles are the most strikingly displayed; perhaps, a disquisition historical, philosophical, and critical, upon the essential and distinctive nature of eloquence, could be no where more seasonably placed, than in Introduction to the LETTERS of JUNIUS.

UPON Such considerations, is the reader's attention invited to the following enquiry

I. ANIMALS, SO far as their natural history is known to us, appear to be universally capable, each of design in itself, and of apprehending the existence of design in the minds of others. Signs addressed to the senses, are the media by which alone the designs of one animal can be made known to another. Every species of animals possesses a cc.tain set of signs, which begin from the unpremeditated emotions of nature; but, even with the most unintelligent of creatures, become, in repeated use, more or less artificial. Every species of animals learn to infer, with more or less clearness and certainty, the presence of design, from all those great natural phænomena which act, with the most forcible impressions, upon their senses. One species may have their signs of communication confined to the perceptions of one sense: in another species, the signs may belong rather to different sense: but to none does the use of such signs appear to be, by their naturé, utterly denied.

YET, there are great diversities, both in the perceptive, thinking powers, and in the communicative signs, of different species of animals. Many of those which are called

the

the Brutes-are scarcely recognized, by the generality of mankind, as capable of any signs but barely the convulsive emotions of nature. Others use many signs of gesture, though few or none of voice. There are others among the brutes, which employ vocal signs, in no inconsiderable diversity, and with inflexions of voice, and combinations of sounds, often remarkably artificial. For man, alone,

it reserved, to use systems of communicative signs, -in which native emotion is lost in artifice,-in which the senses have, each, a various series of artificial signs,--in which the signs become, in an eminent degree, the auxiliaries of complex thought,-in which refinement, abstraction, varied combination, are carried to the utmost pitch at which human intellect can conceive them to arrive,-in the use of which, the native powers of the individual, and of the species, are multiplied more than an hundred fold.

EXTRAORDINARY strength and delicacy of perception, with extraordinary justness and comprehension of design, constitute superiority of genius. Extraordinary clearness and impressiveness in communicating one's thoughts, by means of signs, to others, are ELOQUENCE-in its simplest acceptation. In its complex character, in which it is regarded as one of the most elaborate of the useful arts, ELOQUENCE comprehends at once justness and comprehension of design, and clearness and forcible impressiveness in its communication.

ELOQUENCE, when the word is taken in this general and elementary sense, is not peculiar to man, but is, in its simplest form, common also to all the inferior animals. The lowest degree of clearness and impressiveness in the communication of thought by signs, that is not incompatible with a sound state of the animal organs, shall not, in any particular species, be called-ELOQUENT. But, the range of ELOQUENCE, in every different species, extends from that

that we may discern-what rank among Orators is to be assigned to the Author of the LETTERS of JUNIUS.

BeETWEEN the infancy of society, and the infancy of life in the human individual, there is a remarkable resemblance. The savage is, in many respects, always a child: the barbarian is but a vicious and froward boy. In the expression of their designs and sentiments, the savage, and the child of civilized life, use equally signs, which, being but little removed by artifice from the first simple convulsive emotions of nature, convey thought from one mind to another, much more impressively than if they involved more of refinement and art, The ELOQUENCE of the savage, and that of the infant, are alike powerful in expression, and weak in design. They communicate, with extraordinary force, the sentiments in the minds of their authors: but, they are without the contrivance and enlargement of views, necessary to persuade. They have power to make others adopt, from those who use them, designs simple in nature, and not adverse to the interests and prejudices of the persons addressed: but, they cannot recommend, because they never embrace, complex systems of action; nor are they adapted to subdue hostile prejudices and interests. They are lively and faithful interpreters between mind and mind: but, they are the language of feelings, untutored, and scarcely guided by reasoning.

WHAT can be more ELOQUENT than the cries, the smiles, the outstretched hands, the eager gestures, the feeble embrace, the little angry emotions, the first imperfect articulations, of the infant as yet in its nurse's arms? Erasmus, in his Praise of Folly, has beautifully remarked the power of infancy, in this feeble and ignorant stage of its existence, to make its wants ELOQUENTLY known. But, then, it has no artifices by which to struggle with reluctance, to warm that indifference which resists the first voice of nature,

or

or to turn into softness, that resentment which its little frowardnesses may excite. Its signs are few, belonging only to leading emotions and its designs are short-sighted and narrow; because its knowledge of man or nature, is, as yet, small.

but

very

SUCH, also, is the ELOQUENCE of the savage tribes, whose manners have, in ancient or in modern times, been examined by men more enlightened than themselves. All the signs they use, are the creations of passion, and the very voice of the genuine ELOQUENCE of Nature. How strong the contorsions of their features! How ardent the expression of their eyes! The tones of their voices irresistibly make their way to the heart. Even their first attempts at artificial ELOQUENCE, have in them, much more of Nature than of Art; and, if they affect at all, affect by a sort of electrical rapidity and force of communication from mind to mind. It is long before the signs they use, can be abstracted to the cold generality and refinement of an artificial system, embracing many of the complex ideas of reason. Even after they learn to make speeches in artificial language; the cold artificial part of those speeches is accompanied with the looks, the gestures, the tones of native passion, which endow it with an animation not its own. Being, as yet, novices in the art of abstraction, they refer perpetually in their speeches to individual objects, and to sensible things; and thus employ a glowing figurative ELOQUENCE, which, though to them natural, and the effect, not so much of vigour of genius as of a paucity of ideas, possesses extraordinary power over the springs of human emotion,-is, with extreme difficulty, produced by orators who have been accustomed only to the cold language of abstraction,—and when, at any time, not above the best efforts of such erators, is accounted their most potent engine for the accomplishment